


Too Thin for Daylight

by SassafrassRex (Serbajean)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Shiro Week 2016, a tad fluffy, sleepy, tee hee, which actually could look like a typo if not paying close attention, with maybe a single sentence of creepy at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 15:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8628844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serbajean/pseuds/SassafrassRex
Summary: Shiro tends to roam at night. Always has, since long before he ever heard of the Galra. Sometimes he’ll find Allura, watching stars.Frail things come out at night, so he doesn't push at them. Shiro Week 2016Day 3: Stars





	

 

Shiro tended to roam. Had ever since he was little. Sometimes he couldn’t help it. Halfway through some nights, sleep would slip right away. He’d find himself blinking at his room, prodded by the inexplicable urge to get up and walk. Out of the house, or out of the apartment building, or around the neighborhood, or around the  _ger._  Just around  _wherever_  he was staying at that moment (he’d had to be exceedingly sneaky about it, at the Garrison).

Walk around, only for an hour or so. Count stars if he was in a place where the light pollution wasn’t too bad. Then head in, drop right back to sleep. Not a big deal.

He’d never really learned a physiological explanation for it. No rhyme or reason either, it never mattered whether he was rested or not. Some nights, he would go to bed sore and achy and dead-tired. Only to then wake up a few hours later with an annoying tingling in both feet. Some nights, he would go to bed agitated or nervous, but then he would surprise himself by sleeping through to his alarm clock in the morning. No way to tell at all.

As he grew older, it happened less and less often. He might have been slowly outgrowing it, by the time he finished at the Garrison. Even still. Just, some nights he had to walk outside. Count stars.

Then the galra. And the arena. And cramped quarters with constant noise and no room. That’s what he could remember.

Since getting away from them, he woke up more nights than he didn’t. And he’d lost the way it had been before, when he would just  _click_  into awareness. There was no more of that. These days, he woke up gasping at something shapeless and horrible. He could never remember. He supposed that made them more like night terrors than real dreams. Like the ones children have—all the sick, churning alarm, all the dread. With no explanation to offer, when asked just  _what_  the hell had scared him so badly.

One more thing to add to his list. A list of wrongs that he couldn’t parse (it was lengthy).

And these days, he couldn’t ever get back to sleep afterwards. Bright yellow eyes, sharp hands, loud laughter all made sure of that.

So, he roamed.

Sometimes he was alone, but some nights he came across Princess Allura. She occasionally stayed up late, working problems, doing research, or just finding makework for herself.

If she was awake, she’d be found in a particular chair, near one of the castle’s massive viewports. Dataslate in one hand, a drink in the other, with eyes occasionally flitting up to look outside.

He’d smiled to see how someone who’d grown up among them, still liked to stare out at the stars.

He didn’t like to admit it, but it was nicer when she was awake too. One night, it prompted a conversation about Rilocene military history, and the reason  _why_ the Galra empire still hadn’t quite annexed them, and  _why_ it was so important that Voltron lend aid at that particular time.

Other times, talk was lighter. One weird evening, she prodded until he outlined the basics of Earth’s major religions to her. He managed to get through what he knew about Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and the endless different variants of Buddhism (at least the ones he knew). Allura found the Dalai Lama rather interesting. Enough so that Shiro found his talk of Tibetan practice suddenly derailed by a slew of a hundred very specific questions about the office. Which was approximately ninety-six more questions than Shiro was really qualified to answer, but he gave it a shot. Tibetan Buddhism was far-reaching into India and Mongolia, so it would be honestly difficult to know _nothing_. For his part, he managed enough that the next morning rolled around before he had finished.

Another night, she returned the favor, giving him a ( _basic, only basic_ , she emphasized multiple times) rundown of the society she’d grown up in. As it turned out, the Lions had as many peacetime duties as they did wartime. Similarly, so had the earlier paladins (and _that_ was why she’d been asking about Earth’s spiritual leaders, and  _well_ , wasn’t that a strange parallel to draw?)

Of course, sometimes there was no room for lightheartedness. And the evenings found them putting their heads together, trying to reshape their latest oncoming clusterfuck into some kind of workable strategy. Tedious but ultimately gratifying.

But some nights they didn’t talk. Sometimes she was only awake at all because she’d had nightmares.

***

Tonight (or this morning, or whichever suited) he woke up and went walking. There she was, in her chair. Looking at stars instead of working.

He stepped up alongside. “What’ve you got?”

Glancing up, she smiled. “Same as earlier. Progress has been… slow.”

In a wordless invitation, she projected her dataslate’s read large enough for two viewers. An image out of semi-transparent colored light that was always sharp and focused, and that never seemed to waver (not like the ones on Earth had. It was advanced well ahead of humanity, just like all other things Altean).

Hers was the only chair handy, so Shiro dropped to the floor next to her and settled in.

She’d laughed the first time he’d done that. Volunteered to go find him a chair but he’d waved it off. It didn’t bug him if he had to look up. And it wasn’t like he’d ever developed enough insecurity to need to be higher than those around him.

Besides, he was only about 80% awake. Too nice a chair, in too good of company, and he might nod off (she’d said that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. He’d disagreed).

And anyway, he 

He just

If, sat at her feet and facing the stars, he felt a just a  _little_  too… comfortable for comfort, then that was something else for his list.

If the absentminded hand she momentarily dropped to his hair felt a little too familiar to him, he could add that too. It stirred up a memory he didn’t quite have.

But he wouldn’t push. He knew enough to know better. See, he wasn’t quite awake. Strange things became familiar when he wasn’t quite awake. In a way that he couldn’t make himself acknowledge when surrounded by the others during the day cycle.

If Shiro knew enough to know—to be certain—that he had done some his best work, at the behest of powerful women with white hair and fierce eyes

Well. It was a long list, regardless.

For the moment, he set it aside to talk over plans with his regent. He analyzed the semi-transparent projection in front of him. And absently peered through it, to where he could just make out the stars.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Weird little oneshot, wonder where that came from? Takes place in the same universe as [Purchased, Traded, Wagered, Won,](http://archiveofourown.org/series/589339) but that may have been obvious.  
> *FYI, _ger_ is a Mongolian word. It's roughly the same thing as a yurt (essentially a felt tent, as favored by various nomadic peoples).  
>  Please come enjoy the space dorks with me on [Tumblr.](http://sassafrassrex.tumblr.com/)


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